WAYNE, Neb. - For the third straight road game, Concordia-St. Paul (1-8 NSIC, 0-5 South) dropped a heart-breaker in the closing minutes. This week, it was a 27-23 loss at Wayne State (5-4 NSIC, 3-2 South) at Bob Cunningham Field at Memorial Stadium.

Concordia remains on the road for its only back-to-back road swing of the year next Saturday, November 4 with a 1 p.m. kickoff at Augustana at Kirkeby-Over Stadium in Sioux Falls in the 2017 road finale.

In week four at MSU Moorhead, CSP trailed 21-10 into the third quarter before falling 21-20. In week six at Upper Iowa, the Bears trailed late in the second quarter before taking leads of 16-14 in the third and 22-21 in the fourth quarter, eventually falling 34-29. In both contests, the Bears had the ball inside the 10 yard line with a chance to win.

On a perfect fall Saturday in northeastern Nebraska with sunny conditions and light wind, Concordia fell behind 14-0 in the first quarter and 17-7 in the second before storming back.

This time, the Golden Bears took a 23-20 lead with 2:56 to play in the game when senior reserve quarterback Ron Johnson connected with senior wide receiver Deceon Schumann for a five yard touchdown.

On the ensuing drive, Concordia had Wayne State seemingly headed towards a fourth down on the first series, but a defensive holding call on 3rd and 7 from the WSC 28 yard line gave the Wildcats life. From there, the Wildcats marched, following the 10 yard penalty WSC ripped off plays of 12, 17, 10 and 12 yards in a five play sequence featuring three runs and 1-for-2 passing to put the ball at the CSP 11 yard line with under 40 seconds.

Two plays and a penalty later, the Bears had the Wildcats facing a 3rd and 14 from the CSP 15, looking to hold WSC to a game-tying field goal. Instead, WSC backup quarterback Mitch Hansen completed a touchdown pass to Nate Rogers, with the PAT putting the Wildcats ahead 27-23 with 23 seconds left.

The teams combined for six turnovers and three punt miscues. WSC won the turnover battle 4-2 but Concordia won the punt miscue battle 2-1 with CSP's only punt miscue also resulting in one of its four turnovers.

In all, the teams combined to start a possession in the opponent's territory seven times, with five of those being Concordia possessions starting in Wayne State territory.

The Golden Bears held a final starting field position advantage of 10 yards, with an average start at its own 41 to WSC's average start at the 31. In the second half, as CSP looked to come from a 14-0 first quarter deficit, the Bears had an average start at its own 49 yard line while WSC averaged starting at its own 28.

But Concordia was only able to score on three of those possessions, accounting for just 13 points when starting at the WSC 25 (missed FG), WSC 40 (FG), WSC 10 (FG), WSC 5 (downs) and WSC 34 (TD).

Further, CSP scored just three points off the two turnovers and three points off the WSC failed punts for a total of six points off of WSC mistakes.

Additionally, the Wildcats picked off a CSP pass in the end zone, taking away a red zone opportunity on the opening drive of the third quarter.

Wayne State opened up the game scoring a touchdown on the second play from scrimmage as Rashad Trimble broke off a 70 yard touchdown run.

Concordia's offense came out looking to impose its will at the line of scrimmage as well, starting seven offensive linemen and running the ball for the first eight plays. The Bears picked up 42 yards on the ground before facing a 3rd and 9 at the 50 yard line, throwing an incomplete pass to end a productive first drive that started at its their own eight yard line.

It was a tone-setting drive as sophomore quarterback Maxon Hutton asserted his physicality with three runs for 28 yards including runs of 16 and 10 yards. he finished the game with 17 carries for 86 yards and a touchdown and completed 11-17 for 136 yards for 222 yards of total offense.

Sophomore Darnell Rolle was also productive on the first drive, with 25 yards on four totes and a pair of first down runs. He finished with 13 carries for 57 yards. He had four big carries on a third quarter drive, totaling 42 yards to set up a field goal to pull CSP within a point, 17-16 with 2:52 to play in the quarter.

The third quarter field goal following Rolle's runs was junior Jonas Schenderlein's third of the game, tying his career-high and the CSP single game record. It's the 10th time that a CSP kicker has made three field goals in a game. He went 3-for-4 in the contest, hitting from 38 yards in the second quarter before makes of 22 and 37 in the third. He made both of his extra points, extending his streak to 54 straight dating back to his freshman year in 2015 and he's 64-65 in his career. He also drilled four of his six kickoffs for touchbacks.

Schenderlein has made 13 field goals this season (13-18), tied for the second most in team history with Steven King (13-20, 2009). He's now made 24 in his career, trailing Brody Johnson (25, 2003-06) by just one for second on the career field goal list.

Although Concordia came out looking to impose its running game against a Wildcat defense that had been allowing 163 yards per game and a secondary that led the nation with 16 interceptions, the Bears turned to the pass game to get the offense going on its third possession.

Still scoreless and trailing 14-0 following runs on 11 of the first 12 plays, Hutton hooked up with sophomore Marcus Gustaveson twice for 52 yards, the second being a 38 yard connection to put Concordia to the WSC 10 yard line. Two plays later, Hutton rushed in from nine yards out.

Gustaveson hauled in five catches in the game for 98 yards and two catches of 30-plus yards, adding a 31 yard catch on CSP's opening drive of the third quarter, bringing the Bears to the WSC 28 yard line.

The drive resulted in an interception on 3rd and goal from the WSC 11 yard line with WSC interception leader Glenn Harris picking the pass off in the end zone, his seventh of the year.

Despite WSC's Trimble ripping off a 70 yard touchdown run on the second play of the game, Concordia's defense recovered and held Trimble to 26 yards on 11 attempts the rest of the day as he finished with 12-96. Further, the Bears held the Wildcats to 130 on the ground after the opening drive but WSC still hit the 200 yard mark on CSP on the ground.

Concordia's pass defense, ranked 30th in the country and third in the league entering play, held Wayne State to just 109 yards on 10-24 passing between its two signal callers. It was a passing offense that entered play averaging 233 yards through the air.

The defensive front played its part, picking up three sacks and 12.0 tackles for loss. Sophomore Jackson Dobbs had a strip sack in the first quarter with senior Billy Brown recovering, and freshman Chris Garrett had a third quarter hit that knocked the ball loose on a QB keeper with sophomore Antonio Zepeda recovering. Garrett was second on the team with eight total tackles while Dobbs had six.

Freshman Gabe Nkumu also had a strip sack, which was recovered by WSC. he finished with three tackles, but two were for loss along with the sack.

Freshman Blake Evans led the defense with 10 total tackles, two for loss and a sack, also adding a quarterback hurry.

In the secondary, Concordia had six pass breakups on WSC's 14 incompletions led by senior Andrew Capirchio with three. Capirchio also had a pair of tackles for loss.

Prior to the Johnson-Schumann go-ahead touchdown late in the fourth quarter, it was senior Elias Arlington along with the punt block unit that blocked a WSC punt from the 33 yard line, the ball going out of bounds at the WSC five yard line. Unfortunately, the Bears offense was stopped on downs inside the red zone, coming up empty on Arlington's second block of the year.

Johnson finished the game 3-10 passing for 34 yards and a touchdown.

Hutton and Johnson combined to connect with six different targets including four players with at least two catches.

In the final tally, Concordia out-gained Wayne State 315-309 to go with the sizeable field position advantage it enjoyed. The Bears also had a 31:25 to 28:35 advantage in time of possession, but went 2-of-13 on third down and 0-for-2 on fourth compared to WSC's 4-of-14 and 0-for-1.

Concordia found itself in Wayne State's red zone seven times, scoring five times but just two touchdowns for 23 points, averaging 3.3 points per red zone trip. WSC countered by scoring all four of its trips to the red zone, two touchdowns and two field goals for 20 points for an average of five per chance.